Kimberly Gibson-Tran
Kimberly Gibson-Tran holds two degrees in linguistics. She's written critically about poems with "Lines by Someone Else" and has recent creative writing appearing or forthcoming in Baltimore Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Passages North, Porter House, Third Coast, Reed Magazine, Rowayat, and elsewhere. Raised by medical missionaries in Thailand, she now lives in Princeton, Texas.
Instagram & BlueSky: @kdawn999
Today Smelled Like My Childhood
There were mornings of smoke.
I’d wake to it dragging the valley like a foul robe.
From the smutted window no sparrows, only
now and then, a blackish green from the hills.
Our eyes watered over breakfast. Mom said to call it
แกลบ: chaff.
It was a time of separation—bundles cut and shucked—
I hadn’t known what happens to the scattered husks.
Today smelled like my childhood, green
and something burning.